Barbara with her friends Lizzy and Malina at the science fair. They did all the work themselves and did a great job!
Angie’s letting her creative side show this week, from the Exploratorium in San Francisco
Good thing we didn’t come to Pahoa for Christmas last year…
Uncle Scott wants YOU
to have a happy 4th of July!
She finally got her birthday present. Now, everyone in the family wants one, except for Bee.
She’s getting very good at it, very fast. Must be her scooter training!
Here’s a summary of our whole ride from Milan to Venice. The GPX data on all of the rides, and a higher resolution map, are available here. We didn’t follow these routes exactly but it’s pretty close.
Milan, Pavia, Piacenza, Cremona, Casalmaggiore, Mantova, Ostiglia, Ferrara, Chioggia, Venice
Total distance for the routes is 323.6 miles (including ferries between Chioggia and Venice). However, with all of our minor route changes, Angie tells me that according to her GPS watch we actually rode about 361 miles!
Victory: getting our bikes from Lido to Venice. It turns out there is an unwritten rule that Venice water buses (shown below) do not carry bikes. This makes sense because 1) It is not allowed to ride a bike in Venice and 2) The water buses are always crowded. Bear in mind that we were taking two tandems into Venice, with a loaded trailer (!). Here was our techniqe: Run down to the dock and ask the captain “Due bike abordo?” in your best bad Italian. He says ok, but only for one stop (the first stop on Venice). Then you run back and get the family with two cute bambinis pushing the gigantic tandems and trailer. He freaks out a little, then says “This is a gift to you”. He was right.
A Venetian vaporetto, or water bus
In contrast to the previous 11 days, we spent Saturday among crowds of tourists in Venice on Saturday. Venice was certainly beautiful, and the high point of our day was visiting the Basilica de San Marco, which has a museum where most churches have choir lofts, and that museum provided rooftop access for a unique view of the piazza. I would visit more churches if the let you walk out on the roof.
Both Bee and Frankie are both playing in the Capital Area Soccer League this season so there will be plenty of soccer action! We’re already had a few games but here are the schedules for 
